Tech

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge bring back all the features the GS6 left out

BARCELONA — The successors to the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge phones are here and they're called, predictably, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.

Samsung and Android fans will really love the new smartphones. As excellent as the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge were, the switch to a premium metal and glass design was a step backwards for hardcore users, mostly because Samsung discarded two features popular with that crowd: the microSD card slot that allowed for expanded storage and water-resistant design.

Both features are back on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge and Samsung has improved everything else at the same time.

This year, Samsung decided to split the Galaxy S7 into two screen sizes: 5.1 inched for the smaller Galaxy S7, and 5.5 inched for the Galaxy S7 Edge and its distinctive design, which has curved glass on both sides.

Most users will find the Galaxy S7 to be more reasonable to use, but power users will appreciate the Galaxy S7 Edge's larger display and exclusive productivity features.

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge hands on

Two sizes, same power

The Galaxy S7 is the smaller model and has a flat 5.1-inch screen. The Galaxy S7 Edge is the larger of the two and has a 5.5-inch screen with two curved edges on the front. Both phones have QuadHD resolutions, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processors and 4GB of RAM.

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Refined design

The Galaxy S7 (left) vs. the Galaxy S7 Edge (right). The phones are as gorgeous as the previous S6 and S6 Edge, but the metal frame is now softer and fits better in your hand.

Image: Tyler Essary/Mashable

Gently curved sides

The backside of the Galaxy S7 has curved sides like the Galaxy Note 5.

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Metal frame

The GS7 and GS7 have solid aluminum frames.

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Fingerprint magnet

Sadly, the GS7 and GS7 Edge are still fingerprint magnets. Keep a microfiber handy.

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Water resistance

Water resistance is back on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. It can take a dunk in up to five feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

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Expandable storage

In the U.S., the base models of the GS7 and GS7 Edge will come with 32GB of internal storage. But you can also expand that storage up to 200GB via microSD card. Yep, the memory card slot is back!

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Killer camera

Samsung's downgraded the resolution from 16 megapixels on the GS6 to 12 megapixels, but the aperture is now a larger f/1.7 lens, which lets in a lot more light. As a result, low-light performance is great.

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Super fast autofocus

The new 12-megapixel back camera takes great low-light photos.

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Regular ol' Micro USB

There's no reversible USB Type-C port on the GS7 and GS7 Edge. The phones do support fast charging and fast wireless charging, though.

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Always on display

Both phones have an always-on display for showing lightweight widgets like a clock, calendar or notifications without having to turn the entire screen on.

Image: Tyler Essary/Mashable

More shortcuts

Apps Edge, the "edge" tab that you can slide out on the Galaxy S7 Edge now has room for up to 10 app shortcuts.

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Third-party Edge apps

In addition to all the other special Edge features, Samsung is also allowing third-party developers to get in on the action with their own widget panels. Here's Yahoo News.

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Galaxy S7 vs. iPhone 6

A size comparison between the GS7 and the iPhone 6.

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Selfie camera

There's a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

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Let's start with the regular Galaxy S7. Aesthetically, it looks very similar to the Galaxy S6, which isn't a bad thing since it's a beautiful phone. The key difference is that the back now has two curved edges like on the Galaxy Note 5. The curved backside makes the phone easier to grip in your hand and is a lovely, subtle improvement.

The Galaxy S7 Edge resembles a blown-up Galaxy S6 Edge (or shrunken down Galaxy S6 Edge+) and it, too, is sleeker and more refined. The edges are softer so they cut less into your palm, and the backsides also taper ever-so-slightly. Though it's a 5.5-inch "phablet," it actually feels smaller than phones in the same class.

Same power under the hood

Both phones come with an always-on display.

Image: Tyler Essary/Mashable

And those are the only real hardware differences between the two new phones. The other specs between them are virtually identical. Both phones run Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface. There's no TouchWiz overhaul this time, but at least the interface will be familiar to anyone who's picked up a Samsung phone or tablet in the past couple of years.

The phones' screens have Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) resolution, and they look as stunning as ever. A new always-on display feature lets you view widgets like a clock or calendar continuously, without ever touching the phone. While you might think battery life might suffer, Samsung says the always-on feature actually saves battery life, since it means you don't have to light up the entire screen to check simple things (as an AMOLED display, it only lights up the pixels that are needed).

Internally, both are packing the same performance. They both have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM; select international models will have Samsung's own octa-core Exynos processor instead, but the the company says performance will be about the same.

The base model comes with 32GB of internal storage, which is expandable via microSD card. Like many other smartphones, the memory card slot is cleverly integrated into the nano-SIM card tray.

Image: Tyler Essary/Mashable

Both phones have a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel selfie camera on the front. You're losing some resolution compared to the Galaxy S6's 16-megapixel camera, but Samsung says the Galaxy S7 takes better photos in low light thanks to its large f/1.7 aperture lens, and after trying it out, I'd have to agree. Selfies also look pretty damn good.

Samsung showed us an autofocus and low-light comparison between the Galaxy S7 Edge and the iPhone 6S Plus. As you might expect, the Galaxy S7 Edge smoked it badly — it wasn't even a competition. Something tells us the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are going to be serious contenders for best smartphone camera of 2016. We also love that the camera "nub" is way slimmer this time around.

Samsung has also reintroduced water resistance to its smartphones. But whereas the Galaxy S5 (the last flagship Samsung Galaxy to have a water-resistant body) had ugly flaps to cover its ports, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge don't need any. They're IP68-certified and thus dust- and water-resistant, meaning they can be submerged in up to five feet of water for up to 30 minutes. In other words: Safe for accidental exposure to toilets, swimming pools and rain.

The batteries are still non-removable, but they're bigger this year: 3,000mAh for the Galaxy S7 and 3,600mAh for the Galaxy S7 Edge. And both phones support fast charging and fast wireless charging.

Interestingly, the charging port is a regular ol' microUSB and not the new reversible USB Type-C. We're told one reason why the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge don't have USB Type-C ports is to preserve compatibility with the Gear VR.

New Edge tricks

When the Galaxy S6 Edge launched, the "edge" features it offered were fairly limited and gimmicky. In addition to People Edge, which shows up to five of your favorite contacts, and Apps Edge, which shows shortcuts to certain pinned apps, there's now Tasks Edge.

New third-party Edge panels.

Image: Tyler Essary/Mashable

Tasks Edge works like computer macros, allowing you to program very specific shortcuts. For example, you could make a task shortcut to launch the camera app and flip directly to the front-facing camera for a selfie, or create a task to launch the email app and email a specific person.

Samsung is also opening the Edge panels to third-party developers to create their own Edge widgets. One third-party Edge widget Samsung showed us was by Yahoo News, focused on showing headlines.

You can also now add up to 10 app shortcuts in Apps Edge. Not sure why the People Edge didn't get a boost from five to 10.

Matured Galaxy

Image: Tyler Essary/Mashable

The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are safe updates, but they're also the company's most mature Android smartphones, both in terms of hardware and software.

To some, the phones will appear boring: "Oh, hey, they look almost exactly like the old ones." But that'd be missing the point. The key takeaway is that Samsung has built premium, feature-packed phones that address all of the major complaints — expandable storage, water resistance and battery life — about the Galaxy S6, and it has upped the ante on everything else like the camera and performance. That's no easy feat. If it were, we'd have an iPhone with all of those features by now, but we don't.

Samsung didn't announce pricing, but the worldwide release is March 11. In the U.S., it'll be available on T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and US Cellular. We expect it to be priced competitively with the iPhone 6S. These are premium smartphones, after all.

We can't say with any certainty if Samsung's new phones are the best Android phones ever made until we review them properly, but damn it, they already feel like they are.

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